The prior art is replete with fruit pickers having a chute for conveying the fruit from the tree or bush to a collection receptacle.
Examples of these prior art constructions may be seen by reference to the following U.S. Pat. Nos: 1,064,881; 1,767,977; 1,881,134; and 3,855,765. While all of these prior art constructions are more than adequate for there intendedpurpose and function; they do suffer from both shared and individual deficiencies.
To begin with, all of the prior art constructions employ opaque chute elements that act as visual obstructions to the person using the fruit picker, so that in many instances during the fruit picking process the picker is picking `blind`.
In addition, the majority of prior art fruit pickers employ a forked picking element to dislodge the fruit from the branches, and the tines of the fork not only have the potential for penetrating the skin of the fruit; but, also have an uncanny tendency to become entangled in the branches of a fruit tree.
Furthermore, while some of the prior art constructions employ a fruit braking mechanism, these braking mechanisms are normally specifically dimensioned to accommodate fruit of a limited size range; and, there are no provisions for varying the braking force of the various braking mechanisms employed
Obviously there existed a pressing need to develop an improved fruit picking construction that provides solutions to the problems of the prior art constructions enumerated above.